Working with watercolor has always kind of stressed me out, and since I can’t always get out to the beach to relax, I figured I’d do the next best thing. Continuing my experimentation with watercolor magically transported me to warmer, dryer weather. I think I’m getting the hang of this.

Sometimes I find myself stuck with nothing much else to do, a sketchbook, and my watercolor kit. When that happens, how could I not spend my time making silly little drawings? These little paintings are getting fun.

A friend was having trouble with some inking materials, so I did some troubleshooting on my own to see if I could replicate the issues he was having. Now, I don’t normally ink my girls — there’s no real good reason, I just don’t do it. I think it might go away my natural tendencies towards drawing, but I’m kind of liking the experience.

Also, there’s this weird thing that happens when my friends and I go out: invariably someone will say something ridiculous, and then it’s just a matter of time before someone draws that ridiculous thing.

That being said, I’d like to introduce you to Knopka. She’s a go-go-dancing space-cowboy pirate. You heard me.

I’ve been hinting at a comic project that I’m working on, and while I’m not ready to share my progress with the world at large quite yet, I thought y’all might like a peek at one of the designs. I’ll leak more when I’ve made some more progress.

So, I know of I kind of just posted this image, but after my last post someone commissioned me to do a colored version of it. Redoing this piece was pretty exciting to see what’s changed in the style in the past year. Also, I really enjoyed working in watercolor again. It was fun. I think I’ll have to do this some more.

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
-Harriet Tubman

1820 – 10 March 1913

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Harriet Ross) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made more than thirteen missions to rescue more than 70 slaves using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era struggled for women’s suffrage.

As a child in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten by masters to whom she was hired out. Early in her life, she suffered a severe head wound when hit by a heavy metal weight. The injury caused disabling seizures, narcoleptic attacks, headaches, and powerful visionary and dream experiences, which occurred throughout her life. A devout Christian, Tubman ascribed the visions and vivid dreams to revelations from God.

In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night, Tubman (or “Moses”, as she was called) “never lost a passenger”. Large rewards were offered for the return of many of the fugitive slaves, but no one then knew that Tubman was the one helping them. When the Southern-dominated Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, requiring law officials in free states to aid efforts to recapture slaves, she helped guide fugitives farther north into Canada, where slavery was prohibited.

When the American Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the Combahee River Raid, which liberated more than 700 slaves in South Carolina. After the war, she retired to the family home in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She became active in the women’s suffrage movement in New York until illness overtook her. Near the end of her life, she lived in a home for elderly African Americans that she had helped found years earlier.

“Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that is seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity, and personhood.”
-Coretta Scott King

27 April 1927 – 30 January 2006

Coretta was an American author, activist, and civil rights leader. The widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King helped lead the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

Mrs. King played a prominent role in the years after her husband’s 1968 assassination when she took on the leadership of the struggle for racial equality herself and became active in the Women’s Movement and the LGBT rights movement.

Coretta Scott King played an extremely important role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Martin wrote of her that, “I am indebted to my wife Coretta, without whose love, sacrifices, and loyalty neither life nor work would bring fulfillment. She has given me words of consolation when I needed them and a well-ordered home where Christian love is a reality.” However, Martin and Coretta did conflict over her public role in the movement. Martin wanted Coretta to focus on raising their four children, while Coretta wanted to take a more public leadership role.

Coretta Scott King took part in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and took an active role in advocating for civil rights legislation. Most prominently, perhaps, she worked hard to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Coretta Scott King broadened her focus to include women’s rights, LGBT rights, economic issues, world peace, and various other causes. As early as December 1968, she called for women to “unite and form a solid block of women power to fight the three great evils of racism, poverty and war”, during a Solidarity Day speech.

As leader of the movement, Mrs. King founded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta. She served as the center’s president and CEO from its inception until she passed the reins of leadership to son Dexter Scott King.

Coretta Scott King was also under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1968 until 1972. Her husband’s activities had been monitored during his lifetime. Documents obtained by a Houston, Texas television station show that the FBI worried that Coretta Scott King would “tie the anti-Vietnam movement to the civil rights movement.” A spokesman for the King family said that they were aware of the surveillance, but had not realized how extensive it was.

For various reasons I’ve had to draw Wonder Woman a number of times over the years, but I have to say, I think this may be one of my favorites. Actually, I think this may be one of my favorite drawings anyway. It’s nothing particularly special, but there are just a few small things that I’m really pleased with. At any rate, I dug it out of the archives because I realized I hadn’t shared it with you good folks.